Compared to...

Studio scene comparison (RAW)

In order to achieve as near to a level playing field for comparison as possible, we also shot our studio scene in RAW mode with each camera and converted it using Adobe Camera RAW (in this case ACR 5.6). Because Adobe Camera RAW applies different levels of sharpening to different cameras (this confirmed) we use the following workflow for these conversions:

Load RAW file into Adobe Camera RAW (Auto mode disabled)

Set Sharpness to 0 (all other settings default)

Open file in Photoshop

Apply a Unsharp mask: 80%, Radius 1.0, Threshold 0

Save as a TIFF (for cropping) and as a JPEG quality 11 for download

This is our standard studio scene comparison shot taken from exactly the same tripod position. Lighting: daylight simulation, >98% CRI. Crops are 100%. Ambient temperature was approximately 22°C (~72°F). Camera settings as per previous pages.

Nikon D3000 vs. Canon EOS 1000D

Nikon D3000

Canon EOS 1000D

2.6 MB JPEG (3872 x 2592)

3.0 MB JPEG (3888 x 2592 )

The D3000 benefits more from the switch to raw, meaning the differences are considerably more subtle. In fact it's very difficult to discern much difference at all between the raw output of the Nikon D3000 and the Canon EOS 1000D when their files are processed in exactly the same way using Adobe Camera RAW. Here, the EOS 1000D appears to have the (slight) edge in a couple of crops, but in practical terms, the two cameras are extremely evenly matched in raw mode (assuming the use of comparable high-quality optics).